Spring has arrived here in the Hamptons. Like everyone I'm hunkered down at home, sad and enraged with our current crisis and the news, hopeful and inspired with all the budding, blossoming, and birdsong that comes with the start of the season.
Here, beyond my window, crocuses and hyacinths have begun to bloom, yellows, purples, pushing through the earth, the robin in the courtyard. We planted Amaryllis yesterday. I dug, barehanded till the bed was deep enough. The ground was soft at last, and cold, and like the robin, I found a worm and quickly buried him to keep him safe. Now, how can we keep ourselves safe?
Not for a moment, out there in the warming sun, fog lifting off the bay, did I remember my own sweet, short time here or worry that I may not see the blooms of summer.
Here are two poems I've written recently, "Earth's Justice" and "Awakening":
EARTH JUSTICE
The uninvited guest whose name is fear,
(we’ve met before,)
shoves its mighty weight, its heavy fists
through the cracked and insubstantial door.
We try in vain to bolt the windows.
The interloper muscles up, sneaks in,
feeding on the panic of its helpless minions.
We feel abandoned by the light.
Inside this rampant spin cycle,
too fast to unpack truth,
the flashing pictures are a hazy jumble,
no way to clarify the colors.
It’s all a blur, a reeling warning,
bound to envelop us as darkness falls.
Outside the air is wet and sweet
with April’s promise.
Purple and yellow crocuses peek through.
Though there is so much dying,
budding scrub oaks are alive with bird song.
First daffodils, and cheerful pansy faces,
indifferent to our plight, assure us spring survives.
We tell each other we’re still here.
AWAKENING
The fog has lifted from the morning beach.
This veil of gloom hangs heavy.
Laughter has vanished into disappearing light.
Italians sing to be together, songs and arias
from lonely terraces.
Voices vanish, one by one,
as Rome becomes an aftermath.
Mother earth, our nurturer,
weeds out her human children.
Perhaps she’ll push again
to birth a kinder family.
At dawn, for a moment,
this epidemic isn’t real.
Then day comes rushing back
with outbreak news.
We meet our friends on Zoom and FaceTime.
Our screens divide us into pixels,
No hug, no touch. Strange comfort.
We keep our breath, dangerous,
in danger, contagious and afraid,
from spilling on each other.